REsetPLAY
by ezyl
Summary: A heart is nothing but four chambers and a rhythm. Written for Peridot Tears.
1. anatomically

**Title**: REset{PLAY} ~Automail is the reason we're famous~  
**Rating**: PG-15~R  
**Pairings**: Roy/Ed. Ed/Winry  
**Summary**: A heart is nothing but four chambers and a rhythm.  
**Notes**: Follows anime arc. I fail.

* * *

_REset{PLAY}_

_part one: anatomically_

by ezylrybbit

* * *

It comes to him in flashes, in parsecs the size of minutiae visible only under electron microscopes, while he is already walking down the country lane at twenty-three hundred hours minus five Central Time. It comes to him like the ebbing tides of a monotone ocean, drifting in an out of his conscious on the mismatched scale of a pear-shaped hourglass. It's all grayscale, dominated by objective correlatives and parallel impressions. Time turns into a rocket; it shoots skyward and leaves the world spinning on a bent axis, swinging from feeble hinges.

It's swinging, swinging, swinging.

Water balances on either side of a tightrope swung across a canyon with box-like dimensions of infinity plus one.

And since then, it had never been the same.

* * *

It's already dark when Roy finds the house. The lights are dimmed on the first landing, and a single lamp shines like a satellite beacon on the second floor. The back door is open, spilling voices out into the night. They are soft voices, hushed voices, wistful voices, desperate voices; discussing the secrets that had kept the boy alive. His presence doesn't go by unnoticed, of course. By the time he reaches the door, the girl is already wielding a defiant glare and a heavy-looking metal wrench that Roy would have hated to be victim to.

Rockbell, the old lady tells him with a wary glance. I'm the child's grandmother and you better take those suspicious-looking gloves off in my presence; we have enough trouble with these alchemists, as it is. (Rockbell, you say, Roy murmurs, and then he forgets how to breathe. One, two, three gunshots ring through his head, _BANGBANGBANG_. He freezes, feels something light and metallic –a bullet?– slam into his gut and looks down at his abdomen, surprises himself when he finds nothing there.)

Old Rockbell coughs. Young Rockbell looks ready to commit a capital crime at her grandmother's word. He decides to overlook his position in the end, slipping off the gloves. He'll play the beleaguered outlaw for today.

"We are in the middle of something," the old lady says placidly, "please excuse us."

"I cannot be dismissed," Roy smiles grimly.

A pause; the Rockbell woman sizes Roy up (she sniffs like a blood hound who has found a fresh hole in the ground) and then she scowls, childlike and almost likeable if she hadn't been looking at him like he'd just climbed out from a garbage dump. "Winry, tea."

The young girl reluctantly releases her weapon, but not before swinging it at Roy's face.

"I'm afraid it's important business," he says without flinching, catching the spinning wrench in midair and wincing when he feels the metal clunk against his bones (the girl tramps out of the room with a satisfied smile), "I'm on a recruiting mission."

Old Rockbell folds her weathered arms over her weathered apron. "I see," she says, in a voice that indicates that she does not see at all.

"I'm looking for the Elric brothers," Roy continues, "Edward and Alphonse Elric."

There is a clatter of tea ware, water splashing, and a small yelp somewhere in the background. "Clumsy girl," Pinako mutters under her breath, and adds a short reply, this one for Roy to hear, "They will be unavailable for some time. We have nothing to do with the army, officer. Please leave."

That is when he notices the boy the cot by the workbench, the young boy with the striking blond hair (so much like Hawkeye's!) and the panicky, more-horrified-than-scared frown frozen on his face. There are two bloody stumps on the boy's body, one over the place where his right arm should have been, the other halfway up the thigh of his left leg. Was this human transmutation?

"That's him, isn't it," he breathes, "Edward Elric."

Rockbell doesn't reply at first. She judges Roy through narrowed eyes. "Whatever you are about to do, the answer is no."

"I am on orders to be non-obtrusive—" (the expression that Old Rockbell gives him tells him clearly that oh yes, Roy has been _more_ than obtrusive) "—we can definitely work something out," he adds softly, glancing in the direction of the blond boy again, "I just have a few papers to hand over to you."

The boy in the bed stirs.

(And for the first time in a long time, Roy Mustang can feel his heart skip a rhythm.)

* * *

For maximum damage, you aim for the heart; his commanding superior tells the roomful of eager students during the first lesson on the first day of battle school. He sketches a rough map of a human body on the chalkboard (it looks more like a lopsided chicken drumstick, Roy thinks, but none of the other students say anything so he decides not to bother), and jabs his sausage-fingers at points he deems appropriate; it's their first of many anatomy lessons. The best way to die is by severing the cerebellum from the back of the head (jab, jab), but unless if you're shooting from point-blank (jab, slide of the chalk from the region that resembles a face), or if your opponent is dumb as a walking wooden target (jab, in the pelvic region), this opportunity will be rare, if possible at all. The main arteries above the heart, on the other hand, are a much easier target. The ventricles and chambers cannot function without each other. Everything is interconnected.

One student (probably Riza) raises her hand. But what's the most efficient way to kill? Isn't all that blood a little messy to deal with? Their professor stops for a second and rubs his chin, stalling for time (he's not about to let anyone know that he has not studied anatomy in thirty years, that he would really rather be at home, lounging on his velvet couch and watching _The Secret Lives of Office Ladies__,_ that when you kill you really forget about everything and everyone but _killing_). He is saved from delivering an obscure and extremely philosophical answer when another student (probably Havoc) raises his hand to go to the bathroom.

And so, Roy remembers leaving the classroom that day with one line of notes: _maximum damage, aim for the heart_.

It's a lesson he'll never forget.


	2. philosophically

**This chapter is rated**: PG-15 for words and a thorough lack of coherency.**  
Pairings**: Roy/Ed. slight Ed/Winry**  
****Notes**: Follows first anime arc, another analysis of RoyEd. Written for **Peridot Tears**, to whom I owe this little excursion into the FMA fandom in the first place. 2/4. Thanks to all the lovely people who reviewed the first chapter! Here's a longer one to make up for the last. Also, I have no idea why there's a Havoc in here, and no Fury/Breda/Falman &co. to settle the plotholes. Sorry about that, it's just my innate fail, eheh.

* * *

_REset{PLAY}_

_part two: philosophically_

by ezylrybbit

The stick of chalk squeaks against rough emery.

_Appreciate, associate, applicate,_ it squeals, as the fumbled pens of its audience take it all down—_analyze, assimilate, agglomerate._

In the next seat, Maes Hughes lets out an (unnecessarily) loud yawn. Riza Hawkeye's glare extends over three rows of lecture tables. Roy Mustang clears his throat, and Jean Havoc jumps in his chair, wipes the drool off the cover of his –empty– academic folder.

Squeak, squeak. _Abbreviate, annotate!_

Hughes yawns again, this time taking a little longer before he relaxes his arms and puts them over Roy's shoulder—it's just to piss them all off. Havoc starts jingling the loose change in his pocket; he's trying to differentiate between the coppers and the dollars through tactile sensory. Hawkeye's exasperated sigh tells Roy that she is giving all three of them the finger. He squirms a little under the weight of Hughes' arm, tries to tell Havoc to knock it off through sign language (who is he kidding? Roy's sign language is shitty at best and rich in nothing but sexual connotations, but it's not like Havoc understands any of it, either way).

_Actualize, ameliorate!_

Hughes is smirking. It's a little creepy.

_Apprehend! Accentuate!_

Havoc has eight dollars and twenty-four cents today.

_BUTMOSTOFALL, ACCUMULATE._

A little wind slips through the cracks of the lecture room's solitary window, and all of them suddenly remember that it's still summertime.

_Does anyone have any questions?_ their instructor asks. _Questions? Does anyone have any questions? _(_When is this class over? _They all want to scream, but none of them do because they can all _appreciate_ the effects of arbitrary grade reports sent home on express trains, very well and no thanks to you, Professor.)

_Questions? Questions?_

Outside, someone is practicing forward-march-right-dress on the infantry drums. The beats are rhythmic; it vibrates through the air on a frequency that reminds Roy of the ticker tape in a radio cassette. Somebody is clicking the pause button and resetting it every few seconds. Reset, play. Reset, play. Reset, play. (Sometimes, he wants to reset and play his life out all over again. Sometimes he feels like he's living on borrowed time.)

The bell rings.

He looks out the window, sees the blue skies and despairs.

* * *

Roy's imagination abandoned him at an age that was probably beyond thresholds of other children. He had still been the brazen-faced, sticky-fingered child, to be sure (no better than the rest of them), but maybe too familiar with quadratic equations and integral formulas to mix with toy automobiles and airplanes. Roy's playmates could easily imagine themselves swinging from tree branches with baboons in a tropical jungle, but he just couldn't do it, entirely, because the idiots were clearly takings turns shrieking at each other on a set of battered monkey-bars (wasn't it obvious to everyone?).

But even more than that, he was a logical thinker. Mustang Jr. played the laws of imaginative theory to the very last note, turning the age-old arguments against themselves. He remembers trying to explain it to his grandmother, once. Because –according to the fundamentals of imagination– nothing in life is real unless if you really want it to be, Roy didn't _want_ to see -or believe- in anything that he didn't want see or believe.

The day when five-and-a-half-year-old Roy Mustang informed his shocked parents that _yes, I _do _aspire to become a business lawyer!_ was the day his imagination decided to leave him for better children. This was just too much to handle on a single human boy; maybe it would have more luck if it had gone to a parallel universe, one where you _can't_ become an arsonist with a flick of the thumb. (It was the last straw. And the young boy, in turn, graduated into adulthood.)

Later on, when he thinks about it a few more times, he decides that this is really ironic. Roy's an alchemist, now, and he's supposed to be used to seeing and believing in every sort of messed-up thing that flies out of this world. Oh, how he would have wanted to become a lawyer! An old-fashioned lawyer, in a place where there wouldn't exist chimeras to feed and homunculi to kill. He'd always believed himself to be very good at arguing his point (or coming up with excuses; there wasn't much of a difference in his mind).

* * *

Roy doesn't officially meet Alphonse Elric until they are attacked by a dog three blocks from the Central Building, down the warehouse lane (the company car breaks down, he has to walk in his uniform, all those stupid excuses they invent to make the civilians jealous).

The mutt shoots out of nowhere, skidding muddy stripes and dumpster flies. Hackles rise, teeth bare. Fullmetal jumps back with a surprised curse, and Roy is in too much of a rush to get to work so he decides to get rid of the dog on the spot, brings out a pistol from his coat pocket. (But this is when Alphonse Elric appears. The giant bit of Middle-Aged armor runs in front of Roy before he can unlatch the safety—CRASH. In his haste, Alphonse had forgotten to secure the helmet attached to his metal body, and now there he is for the rest of the world and Roy to see, the little brother, Sir Alphonse from The Knights of the Round Table.)

The first time, it scares the shit out of him. Roy doesn't _believe_ in alchemy, just like he doesn't believe in ferric alloys for automail just like he doesn't believe that hollow suits of armor are supposed to talk; he doesn't have an imagination, he doesn't believe doesn't believe doesn't believe but dammit, it's still there.

The voice from the metal armor starts shrieking. Roy wants to ask himself why he's still standing here and not running away, but Ed does the dirty work for him.

"Al, put the dog down."

"No!"

"I said, _put it down,_" Fullmetal orders his sibling, sounding to all intents and purposes like a stern parent (Roy gives the boy some credit for trying).

"Stupid brother! You don't understand anything!" The metal suit of armor wails, and then Alphonse Elric is bounding off into the night, clanging and rattling and looking very anachronistic, indeed.

"There goes your excuse to terrorize the city," he says smartly (and he's secretly relieved, but no one needs to know).

"Oh, just shut up," Ed growls, "Al! Come _back!_"

* * *

The Rockbell girl calls him over his personal phone line (reserved-for-ladies-only-how-the-hell-did-she-pry-it-out-of-the-operator) a few weeks later, when Fullmetal and Alphonse are both back in Central from a second run-in with Scar. They chat about The Weather Today and bank transfers, stuff that Hawkeye is usually responsible for, that bores Roy and it's no different when he's talking to a fifteen-year-old girl.

"Oh, and one last thing, Colonel?" Winry sounds like she's eating crackers on grapes or something else irritating over the line, and it grates against Roy's ears, "When you manhandle him, be sure not to break the foundation screws on Ed's leg, okay? I spent four hours welding them all in, and I don't want some flame alchemist ruining it all for me."

"Who says I'll be manhandling him?" Roy asks, taking note of Old Rockbell's astounding influence on Young Rockbell's use of speech.

"My grandmother warned me. She told me that you looked like the type."

"The type? I don't understand," he says, even though he can already guess what kind of mutinous thoughts Old Rockbell would plant against him.

"The type to mess around with Ed. Play stupid grown-up pranks on him because he's a kid."

"I didn't ever think of—"

"_Touch the screws and you _will _die._"

When he hangs up the receiver, Roy realizes that he is witnessing incredible injustice.

* * *

He had grown to like his friends in the military.

Havoc had been always there with him—they'd known each other since the battle school days, after all. Havoc enjoys smearing coffee circles and fountain pen thumbprints on his mission reports. Havoc likes Marlboro Lights that cost eight dollars and twenty-four cents and pretty girls who work in civilian boutiques. Havoc finds everything happy when his love life is happy and Havoc can wreak real havoc when he's dumped.

Riza Hawkeye, too, the only female to have graduated in their class that year. Riza enjoys feeding dogs and telling him to get back to work. Riza likes gunshot waterfalls, inner peace and finding half-price chicken drumsticks at the meat market. Riza is a beautiful girl, the only one who doesn't bat an eyelash when he asks her out on a date.

Maes Hughes is the last one to complete the list. Hughes enjoys his family life and passing around photo albums like holy bibles. Hughes likes birthday cakes and crying because you're happy and the springtime of life. Maes Hughes is the best, just the best. Best friend, best lieutenant, best diplomat, best tolerant for Roy's chronic schizophrenia. Maes is just Maes and he won't change for the world and even if he did, Roy would still respect him for it.

Havoc, Hawkeye, Hughes. He never wanted them to become constants, but it happened anyway and now it feels like he'd never want anything else in the world.

* * *

(Fullmetal's different, because everyone treats him like their kid brother. He enjoys taking advantage of his height even though he hates it, and showing off his overtly-adult muscles in front of Roy's girlfriends. Fullmetal likes shiny objects like stars and pocket watches and the little bits of candy in jelly pudding; he studies alchemic philosophy like a fiend, he likes to gaze at the clouds when he thinks no one's watching him, and he also flashes the prettiest smile Roy has seen in years and years. Ed isn't the constant because he doesn't fit any where in Roy's life, because he really doesn't have to.)

* * *

Roy shares the building with an elderly couple whose sons and daughters have all moved far away, a homosexual college student who works at a cake shop, and a middle-aged woman sunk deep within the clutches of commercial capitalism and late-night radio broadcasts. The place looks very old and worn on the outside and every two weeks one or two of the girls he brings home asks him to move away with them, but he never agrees because he has grown attached to it, this life that doesn't reset but keeps ticking forward on borrowed time.

_It's so lonely, here;_ that's what he thinks sometimes.

In the small room, he feels like a giant. His private life is hidden in this unstoppable, impenetrable universe. The fireplace is a black hole, the chairs and the table and the bed celestial bodies. The previous occupants of this apartment had carved a square in the roof and fitted it with glass. On clear nights, Roy can see stars.

It's so lonely, here.

(He can't help but wonder. If it gets quiet enough, will he be able to hear his heartbeat?)

* * *

"I was only trying to help!"

"I don't need your help!"

"Is that it? Remind me again, Ed, who's the one who comes back to me with his tail between his legs every time he smashes up his automail?"

"Stop being such a bitch, Winry."

He enters the room when Winry punches Ed in the face, incredible strength for a girl with that frame. "I hope you rot in hell, Edward Elric!" (Young Rockbell is really dangerous, Roy thinks.)

* * *

"You heard us," the blond boy spits out when she leaves, one hand staunching his bleeding lips, the other curled in a fist. "Fucker."

"Refrain from uttering profanity in front of your commanding officers. We're all soldiers here, but you're still a kid." Roy replies curtly.

"I'm not a kid!"

They all treat you like one, anyway, he thinks, and then feels guilty because does it too, and probably more than anyone else.

A pause. Ed's stomach growls.

Roy stops before the smirk can form on his face. "The cafeteria's on hiatus for renovations, isn't it? We can go to a diner, if you'd like."

"I'm not a kid," Ed repeats, this time more dangerously, "I can eat by myself."

"How," he snorts, "by digging through the staff room? Burglarizing Armstrong's secret supply of protein bars? How did you plan it out, Fullmetal? You spent your last pocket change buying your girlfriend automail parts, just so she'd ignore you for the next five years. Alphonse eloped with the campaign manager of with an Animal Protection agency. Hawkeye caught you with a _self-help book _yesterday. You've made some pretty smart moves this week, haven't you?"

"She's not my girlfriend," Fullmetal mumbles, quiet for a change.

"Call her what you want," he says indifferently (and what is this he's feeling? It can't be _relief_, could it?)

Ed scowls, flares red in the face.

"…i-it's your treat, then."

"I don't think you're in a position to treat anyone."

"W-We'll look for Al later, too, okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

When he was young, he would set up little rules for himself, write them all down in a notebook and then develop punishments for breaking them.

They were innocent when he'd just started out. He can only go to bed after he's finished the homework he's procrastinated over, never before he finishes or never several hours after he finishes because homework drains, and doing stuff after it only serves to rack up a sleep debt. He would pay attention in class only if Riza Hawkeye pays attention, because she is certainly the best measure for practicality—if there ever was such a thing. He would not be stingy about money, but he would never buy a birthday gift for someone he didn't know (where _wasn't_ the logic in that, any way?).

Later on, when he grew a little older, the rules all start to revolve around his sex life. He would never sleep with the same girl over two times, unless if she was extremely attractive (three times), or if she was someone he knew very well (in that case, he would only fuck if she wanted him to fuck, never if he wanted it)—the punishment for that would be a month away from bars and clubs and movie-theatre-dates. He would not take more than three different girls to the same place for a date, but he could take the same girl to the same place as many times as she wanted, or as was necessary before it gets boring (of course, he could take all of them home, but this was an issue about gossip, more than anything else). He would never try to steal any of Havoc's girlfriends on purpose ("I wonder how long this one will last," Hughes tells him all the time, and Roy ignores him because he doesn't want to argue about it).

He wouldn't kiss anyone with a Y-chromosome, because he had no sexual desire for males. There was no question about it; he wasn't homophobic or anything—there was just no reason for it, and for him it's always been about reason.

He wouldn't seduce anyone who is legally not allowed to like him back. (He's made a few exceptions in the past, but he doesn't want a female harem from a high school, because that's just really scary.)

And he wouldn't fall in any kind of love, because he doesn't have a heart and it's stopped beating, for so long that he can't really even remember when it began. (It doesn't stop him from wondering if he can reset-play his heartbeat, as well. Sometimes he thinks he's turned half-homunculus.)

* * *

"Thanks for the meal," Ed says after he cleans out all the money in Roy's wallet. Ten sparkling plates are stacked before him, twenty minutes ago still crammed with ten portions of corned beef, mashed potatoes and thick chicken gravy. (Whoever told him you couldn't eat three times your weight has obviously never met Fullmetal on the other side of a diner table.)

It's kind of nice watching you eat, he kind of wants to say, but that sounds _beyond_ creepy, even to his own ears, and so he just grunts and passes the boy a paper napkin. There's gravy smudging the corner of his lips.

* * *

So it wasn't like a date, was it? Not even if he invites Fullmetal out to dinner four more times, and to different places? Not even if Fullmetal isn't even hungry? Not even if he hasn't bedded a girl in three weeks? (And he's not sure, not any more. All kinds of pathetic, he is, this Colonel Mustang.)

* * *

"Can we talk?"

He looks down, sees Young Rockbell's face. She's on her tip-toes, and wearing a tank top that's giving him an eyeful of her breasts. He looks away.

"I apologize. I'm busy."

(You liar, Hughes would say, you bastard liar Mustang. You're never busy. Now you're evading confrontation from a little girl. You _have_ no shame, don't you?)

* * *

It happens by accident, of course. The family diners weren't supposed to be closed at eleven minutes past ten. They weren't supposed to be at the street corner where the sketchy prostitutes hang out. He wasn't supposed to drag Edward Elric into the nearest bar, order vodka and suddenly forget to remember the drinking laws. He wasn't supposed to let Ed take a sip. He wasn't supposed to drown out his fears. He wasn't supposed to pour out his entire life story, sprinkle parsley over the silver platter. He wasn't supposed to, wasn't prepared to, was never inclined to.

(But he did anyway.)

* * *

So the rest of it happens in fragment-time. The ticker tape runs and skips the parts that aren't important.

_~RE~_

"I-It's just—you _do _look a lot like her, see wh'I'm talkinbout?" He suddenly droops forward, and Fullmetal droops forward too, scoops up his colonel in his arms and tells him it's the seventieth time Roy's said that.

His heart beats. (It's not supposed to beat.)

"Y-You really-a-lot look likeher," he finishes lamely.

"Seventy-one," the boy sighs.

_~set~_

Roy doesn't open his eyes.

"You're a really lame drunk."

"You didn't see anything. I need water."

There's a clink of a cup, liquid being poured. "Here you go, _Colonel_."

His mouth curls around the rim of the glass, downs the water with a grateful gulp, wipes moist lips against a pajama sleeve. He doesn't remember putting these one, not the striped ones. Did Ed undress him, and then…? The thought makes him feel oddly embarrassed, a little defenseless. "What time is it?"

"Five am. Go back to sleep."

"Shit, we have to be at the academy today."

"I called in bubonic plague for you. Don't move. You have a nasty hangover."

"Bubonic plague? Why would you—?"

"Didn't wanna say 'post-coital-ed'," comes the bored reply.

He starts at the words, feels panic and bile up his throat, and struggles to sit up in his bed. "Shit, did I really…"

"I was kidding," there's a laugh, and now Roy can really feel the boy smirk.

"Don't joke about this sort of thing," he says instead, and now he's really uncomfortable. What's wrong with him?

_{PLAY}_

Ed's voice comes in a whisper.

"…wanted to thank you. F-For the meal."

You're too close, he thinks. Too close, Fullmetal. Too close and I'll…

He leans down, cups Ed's cheeks in his hands, and –just like that– Roy Mustang is breaking every single rule he has ever set up for himself. And it still feels like the right thing to do. Kiss at the end of the date—only, Ed was no girl.

(Maybe he's still drunk. Maybe _Ed's_ drunk.

…Or maybe?

Maybe he doesn't care.)

* * *

The _heart?_ The alchemic philosophy professor had preached while waving her arms dramatically in the air (she corrects herself every few seconds to make sure that this dramatic performance is seeping into the minds of her dear students). The heart –_our most vital organ!_– is what the Greek philosophers believed –no, they _knew it!_– to be the brain. Evaluating the heart based on these principles is a very good –no, an _excellent!_– study of motives and intrinsic behavior. The heart has its own sentimentalities, feelings, thoughts. That's the reason behind all those common sayings—_I feel it in my heart. To have a heartache._ What do you really feel in your heart? Nothing but rhythms! A few ventricles and several muscle contractions during a stroke, perhaps? As alchemists, however, you will –no, you _must–_ learn to feel something else in your heart! An utmost –no, _basic!_– law of alchemic philosophy (the students frantically scribble down notes) dictates the channeling of power –_energy!_– through bloodstreams. There are several –no, _many!–_ different veins and arteries that run through to body of an alchemist. Some of them contain only raw –_pure!_– alchemic energy, and others are homogenous mixtures of blood and alchemic energy. To harness your power, you must understand alchemic theory just as well and use it to your advantage! Those who won't will become useless when the weather turns damp (she shoots a haughty look in Roy's direction).

Just as well, he thinks. He won't waste his heart over his alchemy.

(No. Roy Mustang doesn't waste a thing.)

* * *

TBC.

_As always, thanks for reading. Reviews are lovelove. I was _this _close to inserting another Naruto reference. See if you can find one in there somewhere. ;)_


	3. in practice

**This chapter is rated**: R  
**_Warnings_**: there's het!sex in this bit? It made my head hurt something awful.  
**Pairings**: Roy/Ed. Ed/Winry + some Riza Hawkeye.  
**Notes**: _Tends_ toward first anime arc, but I'm altogether unsure, now. Written for my dear **Peridot Tears**.

* * *

_REset{PLAY}_

_part three: in practice_

* * *

They live in a beautiful cream-colored house next to the road, ivory box gardens lining the window frames; orchids sparkle like emeralds, marble gnomes stand guard over scrupulously carved topiary. Aspens crawl up the asphalt, and the windows are probably large enough to glow in space. It's a fucking tragedy in three acts. Prelude, interlude, postlude. Circles and squares that are actually ovals and rectangles; shapes just short of any geometric substance, really, cognitive dissonance and chemical resonance squashed into the same equation. They were too nice, blouses and petticoats and tuxes too pressed and too starched; smiles more fake and shockingly irritating than watching Havoc trying to come up with a plausible excuse to account for his missing paperwork. Food too good, too sweet too salty too soft too chewy, too much roast chicken in a single helping, too much alcohol in a glass of sherry, too much merrymaking entertained over flaky dinner conversation. The minute he walks in, it all comes rushing back. He knows this feeling like he's felt it yesterday; the old objective correlative acting up. Here is where he grew up. Here is where he rejected imagination for rational thought. Here is the birthplace of being overwhelmed and really, really pissed-off.

"Well, if it isn't Roy, fashionably early with thirty seconds to spare. Happy birthday, my dear boy!"

"Oh, _do _have a seat, Roy dear, right next to granny. Good gosh, I haven't seen your handsome face in three years, now. Is my little sergeant doing well?"

(Major. Last time he checked, he'd definitely been a Major Mustang. Even her lack of research is demeaning. He clenches his jaw.)

"Fine, just fine. I've recently been promoted. I hope you're well, too, grandmother, grandfather?"

They beam. Teeth-whitening solution blinds his eyes.

Eighteenth birthday, huh.

After eleven years of academy, seven years of interdisciplinary study, four years of arithmetic, four years of mechanical physics. After eighteen years of mental scarring.

He's finally, finally free.

* * *

On his twenty-ninth birthday, Roy receives a birthday cake from Young Rockbell. The dimensions are round, icing covering the whole parameter and roughly the size of Armstrong's head. Little red and blue candy roses dot the border, and he is told that there's fruitcake filling and marmalade in the center. There are no traces of arsenic in here, are there; that's the first thought that comes to mind. The next is wondering if he'd perhaps died an early death from walking into that helium factory this morning—maybe he'd inhaled too much laughing gas. At least her scribbled-note had imbibed a little more sarcasm.

_Hawkeye and Havoc convinced me to bake a cake for you, so here it is. Happy Birthday, warmest regards. Aren't you growing a little too old for this? –Winry._

He considers sacrificing Breda as gauge for poison, but decides that it's not worth it and hell, he doesn't want to face a jury in a courtroom, anyway.

A bite.

…And maybe it had just been him, but the cake tastes really salty. She hadn't meant this as an opportunity to make use of those foul smelling salts she'd scrapped from Ed's last hospital visit, did she? Get back at him for being a massive prick about avoiding her phone calls and impromptu movie-ticket, you-pay-I'll-play dates? He licks the frosting again, feels a sudden tide of nostalgia hit him like a flash flood. Makes a mental note to check on her eyelids, the next time he sees her.

It tastes like tears.

* * *

Fullmetal gives him something else. Something that makes him run a little feverish and breathe a little heavier and feel that uncanny bit of guilt that he isn't really supposed to feel, not now, not when it's he's a year away from being thirty years and world dominatrix.

"I thought they didn't allow pedophiles into the army," Fullmetal smirks into his face.

"The only thing prepubescent about you is your height," he says, and Ed manages to frown up at him before his eyes glaze over and then he's moaning Roy's name.

(He plants wet kisses down the tanned skin, hears a small whine in the back of the boy's throat, feels the blond braid unravel between his fingers like a particularly soft piece of silk. For all stubborn laments and claims of being lactose intolerant, he can still smell faint traces of cow milk in Ed's clothing after helping out at the farm in the city; that and the rose petal remnants of some really girly shampoo that one of the female sergeants probably forced onto the young boy in an ecstatic revival of matriarchy.)

"Happy birthday," Ed whispers, rocks his hips against Roy's, and god this must be the best twenty-ninth birthday he's ever had.

* * *

"Ed."

"What?"

"You know," she bites her lip.

"_What_, Winry?"

"You really shouldn't be doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Doing _it._ And with someone nearly twice your age."

Sighs. "Mind your own business, Winry. I'm sixteen. I can take care of myself."

"I-I'm worried for you—"

"I don't need you to worry for me."

"What, you think_ he's_ going to worry about you? Oh, _Ed_—"

"Let go of me, Winry. Dammit, let go of m—_mmph_."

* * *

(So when he's trying to find Fullmetal for another diner break, he spots Winry Rockbell kissing a pretty blonde boy with two metal limbs and a cranky posture, a pretty blonde boy whom he probably wouldn't have minded kissing, either. And the way Winry Rockbell kisses the pretty blonde boy, it looks beautiful and perfect and very, very right. It looks nothing like the sloppy kisses that he would give the pretty blonde boy, ones that carry more want and need and God-don't-stop than beautiful kissing, beautiful longing, beautiful love. It's where Roy loses and Winry gains and where it evens out on the balance because this is how a ticker tape runs.)

* * *

He finds himself making excuses to beat the kid up. It's a little depressing, but everything's been depressing, lately, from seeing Young Rockbell trying to play it cool and baking him cakes full of tears and kissing pretty blonde boys behind his back to Hawkeye trying to falsify telephone records in order to cover up Havoc's mistakes instead of sticking up for Roy—these are unprecedented changes in the histoire, and they are definitely not for the better. What is wrong with everyone? What is wrong with him?

"Enlighten me, Fullmetal. Why did you attempt to single-handedly capture an A-Class criminal by yourself? Why did you think it'd be a smart idea to break into a biology research central and smash all the biofeedback panels, _why_ did you think that would solve anything?"

"I didn't attempt anything single-handedly," the boy grumbles, "Al helped me, too."

"…Your mistakes aren't just foolish, oh _no_. They have to be _childish_, _rash_, and incredibly _uneducated_, as well."

Eyes roll. "_Apologies. _Guess I flew too close to the sun."

"You could've gotten killed, you stupid idiot. Or worse, _castrated_."

"…Well, it's not like it matters to you, anyway."

"_It does."_

"What? What did you say?"

Fuck, they'd slipped out. He isn't going to repeat those words. Maybe he'll curb the matter for later evaluation. "Go back to work, Fullmetal. You don't have an official toilet break until eleven."

"…Says the perennial slacker hypocrite colonel."

(_Perennial?_ That's not really an insult, is it? Should he make a jab at it, or save the laugh for another day? Edward Elric looks like he's ready to voluntarily drown himself in the nearest river. And besides, Roy has already got three-quarters of a jar full of these classic Fullmetal-isms, locked away in the top left cabinet along with a fat list of all the telephone numbers he's ever received from a pretty girl.)

Instead, "Another word from you and I'll have you on garbage duty for the rest of the week."

"Sure thing, Colonel. Anything to offload the amount of _horseshit_ I keep hearing from your desk."

(Maybe a threat will do?) "I'm going to burn your hair off your scalp."

"What, so you can make a wig out of it to cover your bald spots?"

"Will you _stop_ being so difficult?"

"Will _you_ stop being such an asshole?"

"_They're both really horny, I'll bet_," he hears Falman whisper to Havoc; they both flash subtle smirks at each other, and now the only comfort is that at least Roy knows exactly who he wants on garbage duty.

* * *

(It matters to him. It does, it does it does. It matters so much to him, so much that sometimes he doesn't believe it, himself. The scenario resurfaces in his mind a little too abruptly and a little too sharply. It's his nightmare. If Ed was to die, find his body in another world, isolated and beyond any means of communication, then maybe a little piece of Roy would die as well, run and fall over the edge of his preconscious and never find its way back. The rapport is like a heat engine, energy efficiency more than three times shittier than an effaceable supernova. Isothermal isobaric systems pushing towards equilibrium but never quite touching the fulcrum of the balance beam, only near enough to lick it with the tip of your tongue, taste a little bit of the sweetness of tangibility and then feel it swing back until it collapses internally, gone in another swirl of autumnal debris. Everything is interconnected and folded back on complexes that fluctuate enough to wrap itself around the universe twice over and still have room to move. Everything shifts and wobbles on its own axis, bumps and grinds and excruciating chills down the spine; creates enough friction to power fifteen twenty-story buildings. Roy is connected to Ed, Ed is connected to Roy. When Ed feels society's grievances falling onto his lap, Roy will experience a tremor in his bones. When Ed feels the desire to spit out salty words, Roy will develop an uncharacteristic belligerence. When Ed smiles, Roy's heart will start to beat. And, as such—it matters. It does. It does, it does it does.)

* * *

Ed asks him questions in the form of statements.

"You're not going to fuck me."

"No."

"I want to know why."

"Because you're only sixteen," Roy retorts, feeling kinda stupid saying it because this kind of thing has never stopped him from sleeping with any girls.

"You always get to decide everything."

"That's because I'm Roy Mustang."

Fullmetal frowns. "You always have to have the last word, don't y—" (Roy closes his mouth with a kiss. No questions allowed.)

His heartbeat _glows_.

* * *

Hughes had a little bartending gig going on around the time they'd been in the academy. Preached something delightful about trade secrets, that the magic of mixing cocktails and scooping ice cubes from ice boxes made the girls flock around at a closer proximity, spill their boobs over the counter ordering tall glasses of Sex on the Beach, spill their boobs over the counter drowning their sorrows, spill their boobs over the counter fully-inebriated and Definitely Interested in A One Night Stand. And while the boob-spilling within a single Ladies' Night implied more action than what most of them usually see in a month, they all knew that Hughes was just trying to reinforce his chances with his manager's daughter. A week later, Jean Havoc decides that Hughes is attracting too many lady friends, whereupon he forcefully establishes himself as a regular customer who drowns out his relationship woes by picking up girls who spill their boobs over the counter fully-inebriated. He somehow also manages to convince Roy to make a promise of never stepping into Hughes' bar without Hawkeye by his side or unless if it was pure coincidence; say, if a murder case had come up and it just happened to occur on-grounds—if a prostitute had been stabbed on the counter while bartender was mixing a martini or something ("Havoc, if you're going to play a dangerous game like this, don't put my career on the line," Hughes frowns).

And it would have worked perfectly, if this promise hadn't been completely forgotten by Roy the minute they'd both sworn their sex lives on it.

But wait—he remembers it, now. He'd still been going out with Riza Hawkeye, back then. When he'd still been young and virtuous. They'd lost their fucking virginity together. How did he forget about this?

Of course.

When things fell apart with Riza, Maes Hughes was the first friend he'd turned to.

* * *

"I need to become intoxicated within the next five minutes."

Hughes wipes his hands against a purple towel on the counter, rubs the back of his head. "Damn, Mustang. That can't be good."

"Liquor. OrI swear to fuck I'm gonna start blowing things up."

"What—"

"_Starting with your head._"

His friend scratches his chin. "Hold up, Roy. Let me come outside with you."

* * *

"Hughsie, y'know. Havoc gonna killer me when he gonna find out. Walked into your bar an' hit on girls an' everything. Gonna get killered."

"Won't matter, Roy. Just don't killer yourself."

He's happy, and immensely so. So happy that he going to kiss Maes on his scratchy, bearded cheek, right now. Giggle a little in stupor, maybe. Heheh. Maes giggles back, helps him up from the ground until both of them are wobbling. They go prancing down the street, singing and dancing and beautifully, gloriously drunk. Just the moonlight, the June light and two fully-inebriated men in their birthday suits.

He adds another bit to the list he's been compiling. Maes Hughes. A good guy to get smashed with, drinking in the flavor of life.

* * *

So it happens one last time, when Hughes leaves them all behind.

They move against each other to the rhythm of the storm in Roy's head, to the thunder of her heart beating and the flashes of lightning in her eyes. She leans over him; her stiff nipples poke into his chest like the light pattering of raindrops. He pinches a raindrop between his fingers, feels her breath catch, and now her breath is the little bit of cold wind that sifts through his hair during the rain. Her moans are storm birds; they cry out every time he feels the harbinger crash around his ears.

(Riza's hands on him are tantalizing, devastating, too much. His cock twitches, and he pushes her up against the bed and takes her while she's still breathing hard and hot, thrusts deep into her, feels her quiet moan and her pulse and her lithe legs that wrap around his waist. It feels good, it really does, especially when she's calling out his name, fingers scrabbling for grip on his back—she doesn't have any finger nails, she bites them when she's nervous, it's the only bad habit she's ever had, he knows her like the back of his hand. He mouths wet kisses back up her throat, and she mewls, gasps when she feels teeth. Her hair is everywhere, out of the bun; it's pale, floats like a stratus cloud. And her eyes are open, now, they glare, finish-me-up-already-you-fucking-tease, and then he's moving, and she's moving, and he's fucking her and she's fucking him he can't hold back goddamnit-you're-always-so-tight, and she's moaning shut-up-you-bastard-fuck-me-fuck-me-fuck-me, and then she's gone and he's gone REALLYGONE but unlike Hughes, they both come back. The coming-back is what makes it bittersweet. Roy hates transcendence like a crime.)

* * *

And they finish when the storm outside begins.

"What are you doing?" Riza says. She's still breathless, breathing in diamonds and rubies, a storm half-spent and too soft to scar his skin.

"I don't feel the desire any more. It's strange."

"Well…do you like me?" Hawkeye asks him, dangling a bare arm over the side of Roy's bed.

"I do," he replies naturally (because of course he does, how can he be expected to sleep with a woman he doesn't like?), and then he wonders why it's so easy to say this to Riza Hawkeye and not to Edward Elric.

"Pretty rain," she murmurs.

"Cold tonight," he agrees.

(It's a bad habit; this is what he tells himself, nothing but a bad habit. Even without counting _oh fuck_ and _don't stop_, they always end the conversation in two-worded phrases, some of it single-syllabic, others with two or three, all of it meaningless. Words peter off and dwindle away, break into simpler terms, slosh their way down three or four rain pipes, simmer to a stop in the monotonous ocean. Worthless entrails. Even the scavengers won't bother to give it a glance. And it's for no real reason, both of them know that. There is just nothing more to say, that's all. Whatever happened to childhood friendship and romance happened a long time ago.)

Winry Rockbell is the one who sees him slip out from Hawkeye's apartment.

* * *

She catches him at Hughes' grave, as well, bright in the morning at an ungodly hour when the birds are still quiet; when he'd been sure no one else would be up as a witness to this moment of sentiment, weak Colonel Mustang.

"You miss him, don't you?"

"I missed him, now he's dead," He corrects her after a while.

"I understand," she lets out a small sigh, and the chilly morning air puffs up around her mouth. He wonders if she thinks she really understands what he's feeling, wonders if even _he_ can understand what he's feeling, himself; then, with another two pistol shots, remembers that she's supposed to hate him, intensely and rightfully so. Remembers that he can't really bring himself to dislike her, because she's definitely the one who lost more than he ever had. Guilt. It's the fucking guilt, the consequences paid for being too young and too virtuous.

He finally realizes why Winry Rockbell's words sting the most.

"Stop hurting."

"I'm not hurting."

"It's going to hurt Ed even more the minute he finds out you've been sleeping with a billion women behind his back."

"What are you—?" Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

"And now Riza Hawkeye? She's like a _mother_ to him. You can't do this."

He grins sourly. "Really, Winry? That's kind of a bitch thing to do."

"What, telling him the truth? _He's_ actually in love with you, and you don't give a shit about him."

"It's a lot more complicated than you t—"

"Looking pretty simple to me. And it's not even because you killed my parents or anything," Winry Rockbell spits out, "It's because I love him more than you ever will. And he knows it. Get out of his life."

* * *

(And what sucks, is that it's true, absolutely true. He can dice himself up, chop his mind and his body into little pieces, burn himself up into trillions of particles of carbon dioxide, become completely unrecognizable to the world, and he'll still know it, know it like he knew it the first he'd kissed Fullmetal on the lips, awkward red-faced boy kissing fully-inebriated man who'd probably have spilled his boobs over Hughes' counter if he'd had any boobs. Roy knows it as a fact of life—it's true, because he has never loved.)

* * *

"I-I shouldn't have expected," the blond boy says, his voice a little on the edge of wavering, held back only by his pride.

"You shouldn't have." Roy replies, because it's the only thing he can say now. He can't say I'm sorry, because he hasn't said it in a long time, and he can't say that he didn't mean it, because –if Hawkeye's scattered clothing around his bed, the tangled sheets, the fallen lamp is any indication– he clearly had.

And he most certainly couldn't say I love you, because he doesn't have the heartbeat to accompany the words.

* * *

Once in a while, he will lie down on the living floor in his apartment and look at the stars from the glass hole in the roof. Flat on his back, just him and the black velvet sky, the burning balls of hydrogen-to-helium. Questions arrive like hummingbirds to a precious bit of sunflower. Why he's still here, why he's still alive, why isn't his heart beating when he's alone, why the prices of milk and cheese have to keep rising, why he's so upset about milk and cheese when Fullmetal doesn't even like milk, what the hell is his problem anyway, why did Hughes have to leave them all behind, when was the last time he'd actually shed a tear? Constellations twinkle, crickets chirp, trees rustle, the commercial-capitalist upstairs cranks up the volume on her precious stock exchange report.

And somehow, life manages to go on.

* * *

"I'm going to the other world."

He smiles wanly, stares into the sky to avoid the face.

"So this is it, isn't it," Ed says, releases a little bitter breath, "Guess I really don't merit any reaction coming from the great Colonel Mustang, do I?"

"We'll miss you," he just nods, and then he turns away; his heart has stopped beating, once again.

(So Fullmetal got the last word anyway, Hughes would say, stupid Mustang you shameless, retarded fuck—but this time Hughes isn't here to say it anymore and so he does it himself. It doesn't hurt twice as much as it should.)

* * *

The science behind the heart is nothing new, Professor Harvey tells his class (and he's the one who likes to insult his students, make them identify as worthless in order to stimulate his selfish pessimism and justify that there is no meaning to life in the military)—the heart in empirical study is just a theory of bloodstreams, circulatory, arteries, veins, and capillaries. Knowledge of its functions benefits not a single one of the lousy cadets in this battle school, so we will leave it for the medical professionals. However! It is absolutely essential that you appreciate the importance of what brilliant knowledge that medical practitioners hold in their hands. As a mindless killing machine, you will want to strongly consider any ulterior motives, alternative solutions, convenient excuses before you pull the trigger on a medical professional, because lives will be at stake and you will be blamed. Never point your gun at a doctor if you can help it.

Well, it's just tough luck, Riza Hawkeye mutters, and when Roy agrees he feels the weight of the world slam down on his hands.

**

* * *

**

TBC.

_FFnet format is killing me slowly. D| Last part coming up soon?_


	4. in faith

**This chapter is rated:** R and a half.  
**_Warnings:_** pov screw-arounds. I have also committed the Elric-Uzumaki crime. Again. OTL  
**with pairings of**: Roy/Ed. Ed/Winry.  
**some notes**: creepy shit that makes me wanna swallow potassium cyanide but ALAS I AM DONE. 8D Dedicated to **Peridot Tears**.

**Summary**: A heart is nothing but four chambers and a rhythm.

* * *

_REset{PLAY}_

_part four: in faith_

by ezylrybbit

* * *

{RE set}

Winry intrudes on him another day, when the skies are still a smidgen short of threshold opacity and the curtains of the dorm are closed but not completely closed and he's not really aware that she's watching him. She has always been watching him, and sometimes she wonders what he would do if he ever found out about it. Yell at her, probably. Stop being such a stalker, Winry. Don't you have better things to do? Grind out a few immature epithets, ones that have classically-conditioned her to want to slam her fist into something metal and gut-shaped. Sadistic Mustang might convince him to file a restraining order on her or something—oh yes, she can just imagine it.

Though in all honesty, she thinks, what is so fucking complicated about it, anyway? Just her eyes following his. Just Winry's eyes following Ed's, in a world of eyes following eyes, eyes following shadows and objects and people just barely out of reach and pushed out of Attainable, playing hopscotch along the tangent lines of the sphere of influence. The rapports had retained all the elements of fair trade. Winry has spent more than half a decade pouring her heart into the automail—the least Ed could do is let her stare a little. Story of girl loves boy, boy falls victim to pedophilia, girl cries herself to sleep at night. (Just what part of this fantastical travesty makes _any fucking sense?_) No freak appearances, no umbrellas in the rain, no turning-point revelations. No kisses, no bleeding-on-the-inside, no stimuli encourages no reaction. Impulse dies before they could draw the curtains. She can't help it, she loves him. Might make her feel stupidly useless and stupidly helpless every hour of the day—but what of it? Ed has never liked her beyond friendship, and she's long since resigned herself to it. She won't stop, even if nothing happens. She just gets more and more used to this feeling, a little pang here, a softer ache there.

As such, the consequences of stalking Edward Elric include being witness to a number of things that she would have been better off not-hearing, but do anyway.

She never knew she could be such a masochist.

(_Why do you do this to me_, Ed whispers to the empty room, to the sheets on the bed and the light fixtures and the windows and the wooden chair propped against the door. He has one hand balled into a fist under his pillow and the other one below the blankets, fumbling, feeling, stroking. Release comes too quickly and too sourly. Now he's whispering a name, he's biting his lips, he's crushing his damp hair under a lumpy pillow, he's heaving with dry sobs because he's not a boy and he doesn't cry, he's undeserving, he's reckless, he's unstrung, he's been lost all this time—he's Edward Elric, trying to salvage the pieces of a breaking heart.

Is he still searching?

From the corner of her eyes, Winry realizes that her cheeks are wet.)

{PLAY}

* * *

There is one time when Edward Elric comes back to fetch his little brother, and it really feels like it's the one time to end it all. Perhaps the portal to the other world is just a deus ex machina who took pity on the tragedy in three acts. Roy doesn't need the pity.

"So this is the second goodbye, huh," Ed smiles, shakes his head lightly, "Don't get me wrong. I meant it the first time, too."

Roy's mouth is dry, but he nods. "No understanding lost."

"Pfft. There wasn't anything to understand, really. Just—thanks."

All of a sudden, he wants to question the validity of this second goodbye.

The boy (is he still a boy?) throws him a lazy look. "Thanks for…_being there,_ you know? Letting Edward Elric's younger self find some sort of passion in life and all that. For a moment, I'd really thought I'd fallen in love and everything—"

(The conversation is cut short when an army of mindless killing machines descends on the tower, hammering iron fists into tin roofs. _We'll meet again, believe it! _And then Fullmetal, Edward Elric, the boy whom he would have given his life up for is gone, gone like the fresh bit of poetic elegance swimming in grayscale waters, clambering up the ascending tube of the metal aeroplane, plucks open the door to the other world. Alphonse Elric's red cape billows in the high-altitude slipstream, not too far behind.)

* * *

It's all rush after that, repairing and rebuilding and reassessing. Re-appreciation, re-association, reapplication. Re-agglomeration, re-assimilation, re-apprehension. State Alchemists position transmutation circles around the city to encourage the walls to grow back from the earth, and there are endless stacks of papers to file, permits to confirm, identities to establish. Even Riza's too busy to keep an eye on him, so Roy finds himself living in the moment, drinking too much beer and not enough hard liquor, going out with girls every other night and fucking them into the wall. It's reckless, but he's self-efficient and self-sustainable, always been, maybe even more so now. He works, too, sits behind his desk and stamps seals over forms, marks X's in the boxes, files pension forms whose significance equates to that of Falman's salary. When everyone's looking the other way, he shoots beer and aspirin and puts on a really good show of looking sober.

On a rest day, Havoc makes a rare proposal (for good or for worse).

"Hey, Roy, wanna join me and the boys for an evening of sinful debauchery?"

"Is it business related?"

Havoc pouts, and Roy decides that he never wants to see that look on his subordinate's face, ever again. "We need your help to pick-up the ladies!"

"Why don't you just go to a gay bar?"

"But I'm not interested in men."

"Does it matter?"

"…God, you're impossible."

"I'm very sorry you think so."

* * *

(He could cry. He could really shed a few tears, hold his head in his hands and put on the pretense of being hangover at 2pm in the afternoon, he could really bawl out an _ode to la tempête_, croon a few syncopated lamentations, mourn for his loss, mourn for the military's loss, mourn for the loss of a disillusioned dog of the army, mourn for long blonde hair and frosty blue eyes, mourn for the frown that could render swoons in matriarchal dominators around the world. Yeah—he could really cry.

But –and he's facing the facts, here– he's probably going to go for that evening of sinful debauchery, instead.)

* * *

Ed plucked at the metal screws embedded into the tendons on his arm. The wires plugged into his nervous system were getting a bit wobbly, and he would probably have to ask Winry to rework some of the metal plating after another inch off his right leg. Might have to go forty-six more reimbursement forms for the sake of pleasing a female mechanic. "_Fullmetal?_ Out of all the cool nicknames they could've given me, he decides on the stupid automail?"

Roy shrugged, tapped the metal shoulder with a stiff smile. "Hey, it's the reason you're famous."

(He felt it, then. Felt his love for Edward Elric like he had never felt it before.)

* * *

The gunshot rings, once, twice. Two bodies fall. One twitches, gurgles crimson that scatters rose petals on the floor. Tears, too many tears and too many injustices unspoken and too many precious nights spent in happiness. Oblivious to fate, walking on a tightrope in a box canyon vibrating at a frequency that tunes in to all oblivion and fate. The other body's already lifeless.

"Please…Please…!" Two more words, ones he doesn't catch, and now Dr. Rockbell and Rockbell have left the world behind.

What should I be feeling? He asks himself, and isn't surprised when there is no response. Abject horror is now predominant, the last traces of any sort of adhesive shame and dignity and honor scraped off with the tip of two metal bullets. What should I be feeling?

He tries to look for it, searches under the heavy fabric of the jacket. The pistol's already been hurled away near the medicine cabinet, and his hands are trembling as he claws open the black buttons on his army uniform. Where is it? Even though he knows it's still beating, still pumping blooding through his circulatory system, pushing through veins and arteries and capillaries –biologically, functioning and performing as it was intrinsically designed to do– he can't_ feel _it, not in the way that the philosophers from the Greek papers described it.

_Where is it?_

His heart—it's not there anymore.

What's happening to me, he thinks, where's my heart. _Where is my heart?_

* * *

When the Elric brothers are finally out of sight, he sees it all over again; remembers it like it's been there all along. And it's all coming to him now, in flashes of objective correlatives and grayscale oceans. He remembers wooden toys dumped into grandmother's lap, letters of admittance into the world of alchemy and dirty fighting, Havoc's girlfriends and Hughes' martinis, the night by the countryside and the bloody arm and leg, his (almost desperate) childhood desire to become a lawyer, Doctor Rockbell and Rockbell. He remembers his apartment room in the universe, Riza Hawkeye's flushed cheeks, Hawkeye's legs, Hawkeye's skirt by the foot of the bed, Hawkeye's don't-give-me-your-crap voice, the cake with the taste of tears, Winry Rockbell's trembling lower lip, Winry's bitter warning, Ed's first goodbye, Ed's second goodbye, the smile on Ed's face that had eternalized world enough but time. (Maybe it's the only smile he's ever believed in, even after his imagination had left him at the age of five and half. Maybe he still believes in it, even now. Maybe he doesn't care.)

Take me with you, he thinks, as the doors to the other world close on him. Take me with you, Fullmetal.

_Please._

And the moment he thinks that, he knows he won't ever say it out loud. He'll whisper it to himself a few more times, maybe, and dream a little more. But he can feel it now, once again—Roy feels his heart beating. _Thump, thump. Thump, thump._

It stops for a second, just one second. _Thump, thump, thump._

The ticker tape skips to reset-play, and it ends, again and again.

~tick, tick, tick. **THE END**.

_Thanks for reading. As ever, nope! My writing is still this kind of crap and I'm very sorry you ever laid eyes on it. Reviews would be lovely anyway. Because _FUCK I'M FINISHED_. It's been about three years since I last finished a multi-chap. The love I have for youuu, Dottie-dear~ n_n _


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